[X] Improving your relationship with Admiral Esprit is a good idea.
[X] There are a lot of marines on this ship, go hang out with a few of them.
[X] Chrono just got assigned to patrol Unadministered World 97 along with mom. You remember that one having some fairly interesting literature, and possibly having been in contact with Al-Hazard at some point based on it having Arthurian legend. You should call them.
[X]There are a lot of marines on board, ask them to do some exercises against vastly superior numbers
-[X] For fighting against vastly superior numbers (offensive)
-[X] For defending against vastly superior numbers (defensive)
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Eight hours. What exactly should you do in that time? You were probably going to be on the Tiamat for a long time, so getting to know the crew was a good idea. A healthy relationship with current sorta CO was probably a good thing. Meeting with Daskalos might be useful, but you were simply exhausted from the two-hour lecture he gave you. Let's see there's also, um, no you knew this, come on Destiny think you know this.
"Oh fuck, I don't know anything about the crew of this ship." You sigh.
You had read a fair amount on the Tiamat, Project Balmung, Daskalos, and Admiral Esprit, but you know next to nothing about any of the other people on this ship. Well, it's time to fix that.
You pull up the information Admiral Esprit forwarded to you on your CODEX. There were only 300 people on this entire ship. The average number of personnel onboard a cruiser was around 800-1400. Sure all 8 B-Class ships have adaptive regeneration which made doing any form of engineering work on them nigh impossible. That meant the only personnel that Command felt was necessary to station on board was an admiral, navigational staff, medical staff, engineerings to do work on any vehicles stored onboard and other miscellaneous tasks that required a human touch such as cooking. Something about this seems off. You can't quite put your finger on it but something seems missing from this personnel list. You shake it off. You have more important things to do right now, and you can always ask the admiral about it later.
You had decided to visit the marines first. You're going to end up working with them if any kind of serious fight broke, and you are confident one will. There are 200 marines onboard each split into squads of 5 each, thus 40 squads. Now interacting with all of those squads in a single day on this massive ship sounds night impossible, but interacting with one or two of them should be easy. Hours of searching had led to nothing, the only place that you would reasonably find marines in that you haven't searched was the training room, but you really didn't want to interrupt there training, but you had nothing else to do any they probably wouldn't mind you sitting in on their training.
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A burly man who must weigh twice your size went hurtling over your head. In the center of the room, a single squad of marines was fending off seven squads. Well fending off wasn't right, it was a slaughter. You don't think a single one of the single squad even got touched. The fact that all five of them were flying and only about seven marines in the other squads combined probably helped. Two of them seem to be melee specialists, running interception on every marine trying to close in on their two ranged specialists. The final marine seems to be a support specialist. It's hard to tell what's happening from your angle, but you have a feeling that getting any closer would disturb the exercise.
"STOP." A loud voice demands.
A tall man in dark green armor comes into view and address the marines.
"Dragon Slayers you are dismissed." He said turning to the single squad. "Now the rest of y'all sorry sons of bitches get your asses over here." He commands as the marines slowly circle him. "Double time soldiers, hell I'd settle for single time. My grandmother moves faster than you."
"Didn't you tell us your grandmother died, sir?" A voice questions meekly.
"Exactly, and I'm sure she could put up more of a fight than your sorry ass." He yells. "But, maybe what you all need is a little motivation."
He whips around to face you. The marines begin looking over towards your direction, several of them shocked to see someone standing there. You aren't surprised, you were trying to make as little noise as possible to not distract them.
"How 'bout a bet miss. Seven squads of my marines against you. If you win you can call me Prince Adams, cause I'll grant you any wish your heart desires." He said, the reference lost to me, but the marines chuckle at it. He turns around again. "And if you all win, then you won't have to run laps around the ship."
That sounds hellish. You are almost tempted to throw the fight. Almost.
You look to the side and see the Dragon Slayers sitting down watching you. They are certainly skilled, but you are better and you'll prove it. Not to mention it will certainly be a useful training exercise.
"Lets up the ante. Two rounds seven squads each. The first round will be one minute, if all of you can make me break my barrier jacket you win. Second round I have beat you all within one minute." You offer.
"You got guts kid, I like that." He says.
Your necklace emits a large flash of light. In an instant, your uniform is replaced by your barrier jack- a blue and white jacket with a white shirt underneath, black pants, and a pair of black fingerless gloves- and a large metallic bow with no string appears in your hand. You pour some energy into the bow and several blow lights start glowing along with a blue bow string forming.
"Your three minutes start now." You say.
"Let's see if you maggots are worth the air you breath." He says and then steps away.
The thirty-five marines all start barrelling towards you. A chorus of voices cries out as each one sets up their device. A large array of staves appear in their hands, along with a few words. A large amount of glowing projectiles race towards you. You recognize the spell as Shoot Barret, an incredibly simple and the basis of the Shooting style of magic, sadly for the marines such simplicity meant the spell was easy to deal with. You effortlessly dodge around every single shot except one, which you go out of your way to dramatically deflect with a swipe of your right hand in a show of power.
Theoretically speaking fighting an overwhelming number of opponents like this was a herculean task for anyone. Which is why it is always recommended to split your opponents into far smaller, more manageable groups. The marines halt for a moment, realizing they may have gotten in over their heads. The six melee fighters start charging at you once again. You begin moving away from the group, knocking away bolt as you. More Shoot Barrets fly at you, but none find purchase.
The melee fighters quickly reach you, unable to fight back against them as per your own rules you resort to dodging. Bullets fly around you. With their allies this close firing upon you is too great a risk, instead, they are focused on preventing you from escaping, and boxing you in. Despite your vast advantage in speed, you simply don't have the experience to deal with this situation. You roll under a sword swing, and attempt to jump back to your feet, but are brought back to the ground by a strike of a blade. You slide across the ground but rebound back to your feet. You need to put some distance between you and the sword fighters. You tactically advance in the opposite direction of the swordsmen and begin preparing a spell. The firing line of mages quickly shifts their aim over to you. Innumerable bullets of magical energy fly towards your form.
"Aias." You cry.
A large blue shield of magical energy with a complex magical diagram appears in your right hand. You extend said shield towards the torrent of bullets and watch as each one is helplessly deflected. You run towards the firing line hoping to put some distance between you and the swordsmen behind you.
"Chain Bind." A swordsman shouts.
A series of chains emerge from twin layered magical circle. Before being followed various other chains from the other mages alongside him. You drop your shield, roll out of the way of the first set, push off the ground and launch yourself over the second set, land and sidestep the third, and watch as the remaining three fly into each other careen way off course.
You begin dashing back towards the firing squad when a loud noise echoes through the room.
"Time." The man you can only assume is their CO shouts.
You should really get his name later.
"Round one goes to Destiny over here. Let's see if your sorry assess have what it takes to at least survive on the battlefield."
The marines begin to group back up looking far too out of breath for only one minute of combat. Sure it was probably fairly stressful on the inexperienced mages.
"While I didn't attack you last round, you are all free to attack me this one." You say.
It will not help them, but you are benevolent enough to give them a chance to survive.
"Begin." You shout.
You pull the string back on Ichaival and knock a bolt of magical energy.
"Ricochet Round." You cry.
You release the string and with a crack, a round of blue energy soars through the air and impacts a swordsman knocking him onto the ground before bouncing off of him and doing the same to another, and another. Overall it hits five of the six melee fighters before dissipating. That was more than you thought, but less than you hoped for. You hit the last melee fighter with a Snipe Shot and he falls as well.
With such a clumped up group of ranged fighters you desperately wanted to cast Scatter Bolt, but there are noncombatants in the area who might get hit by a stray shot. Still, it was inefficient to take them out individually and after seeing what happened to their allies they were going to scatter far too quickly for another Ricochet Round to do the trick. They are currently panicked and would likely focus on spreading out and coming up with a strategy rather than shooting at you, which meant…
You begin to draw a vast amount of energy from your linker core and point Ichavial towards the ceiling. A complex array of shapes and symbols appears beneath your feet all inscribed within a larger circle. The circle begins to spin faster and faster beneath you as more magical energy is drawn from your core. The air around you begins to crackle due to the sheer volume of energy being condensed in the space around you. You draw the string on Ichaival as far as you possibly can.
"The wrath of the gods given form; Vajra." You cry.
A bolt of energy flies directly upwards. It reaches the ceiling and then explodes outward into twenty-nine smaller, but still massive, bolts of energy that impact the twenty-nine remaining mages. Twenty-nine explosions rock the room, as each of the mages falls to your spell.
20 seconds. That's all it took you to lay them flat on their assess. You can't help but feel disappointed. You were expecting a decent fight out of this.
"Damn." The CO says, stepping over the unconscious bodies of several mages as he approaches you. "I must say I am impressed. Looks like I, in fact, owe you anything you want."
Wait he was serious about that.
"Wait you were serious about that." Your mouth echoing your thoughts.
"I am a man of my word, which also means they will have to run laps around the ship, again." He says. "Third time this week." He mumbles.
You glance over to the prone forms of the marines and give them your condolences. The Tiamat is a large ship, and if they can't even last a minute against you, then running laps around the ship might actually kill them.
"I'll get back to you on that wish thing." You say.
"Alright, I'm gonna go find Miranda and tell her to expect a lot more patients soon." He says, walking off.
"That was some excellent work." A voice booms from behind you.
You turn around to see a large man with brown hair and mustache with the biggest smile you have ever seen behind you. He grabs your hand and begins shaking with such a firm grip that you swear you hear your bones crack.
"Name's Alex. Nice to meet you."
"Destiny." You reply.
The rest of the Dragon Slayers file after him.
"Impressive. How about I treat you to a drink for your excellent work?" A blonde woman offers.
"Maria we are still on duty." A blue-haired woman chides.
"Oh come on Sofia, loosen up and live a little." The blonde, now identified as Maria, replies.
"I wouldn't go drinking with her if I were you red." A raven-haired man advises. "She took the new recruits out drinking and half of them woke up naked in an alleyway. Names Xavier by the way."
"You what." Sofia yells.
"Not my fault they're a buncha, lightweights." Maria dismisses.
"Maria as the elites on this ship we are supposed to set a good example." Sofia replies."
In the back, you see a silver-haired woman with long hair staring at you in shock.
"Hey. My name's Destiny." You say sticking out your hand.
She doesn't respond, in fact, it doesn't look like she even heard you.
"Hello, anyone in there?" You ask.
She shakes her head and blinks a few times before responding, "I'm sorry you just reminded me of someone I used to know. My name is Christina." She responds.
"Awww Chris has a crush. Haven't seen her like that since ..." Xavier starts.
Before he can finish what he was saying Christina glares daggers at him and the whole room goes silent.
"So where are you all from?" You ask, hoping to change topics from whatever bad memories Xavier brought up.
You immediately realized that you messed up and as everyone's focus shifts to you. Alex lets out a large sigh.
"Danerth. We are from Danerth." He says.
They all looked to be in their twenties, so they lived through the civil war and probably fought in it too. A bloody war that lasted five whole years. Danerth had a population of around eight hundred million people before the war. Now it is only six hundred million people. Over two hundred million people died, making it the most deadly conflict since the Saint King Unification War. After the war ended, the planet was devastated, to this day they are still trying to terraform several regions of the world back to a livable state.
Xavier begins chuckling nervously.
"What about you Destiny."
"Ricertia." You reply.
You all stand there completely quiet for what feels like an eternity.
"We should get going. If we want to get lunch before our meeting with Lotus we need to leave now." Maria says.
"Well Destiny, it was lovely meeting you, and I look forward to working with you," Alex says with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"You too." You reply.
The marines shuffle out of the room, leaving you in a room full of unconscious bodies. The scene all too familiar, it's almost like that day. The room suddenly feels much
warmer than it did before. You begin to sweat profusely. You feel stomach acid burning the inside of your throat.
"I need to leave." You whisper to yourself, running out of the room.
XXXXXXXXXX
That could have gone a lot better. You had a terrible first impression with your new colleagues, spent the last twenty minutes vomiting in the bathroom, and then another twenty minutes getting the smell of vomit out of your breath. So it is time to do what you always do when you need to cheer up: tease Chrono.
You send a video call request to your brother and wait for him to respond. After a few moments, a large screen appears in front of you. Your little brother is wearing his barrier jacket: a large black coat with shoulder spikes and dark blue pants.
"Hey Chrono how you doin? You make it out to UW 97 safely?" You ask.
"Yes. We will be observing the local area for the next month or so. After that, I will make a report on what happens." He replies.
"How's the crew treating you?"
"They are treating me respectfully, though I am worried it's only because mom's the admiral." He answers dejectedly.
"Don't worry about it, you are a talented enforcer and I'm sure they'll pick up on that."
Despite his small stature, young age, and ridiculous barrier jacket, your brother was someone whose presence somehow demanded the respect of everyone in the room.
"You're right. It's silly to worry about things like that." He replies with a small smile.
"So, any cute girls?" You ask.
"Yes, there's o…" He starts, then immediately stops once he realizes what you asked.
You are honestly shocked that worked. Normally it's much harder to catch Chrono off guard like that, but you aren't gonna complain.
"Oh my, my innocent little brother has a crush. I hope you don't get too distracted." You tease.
Chrono's face turns bright red and his eyes widen.
"I-I-I do not have a crush." He stammers out.
"Really, but you just said…"
"I said no such thing." He interrupts.
You sigh and replay the last few seconds of audio. Really he should know better than to tell such an easily disprovable lie.
His face turns even more red.
"I… that's not… I mean… well." He says, his words having lost all sense of cohesion.
"Look Chrono, I think it's wonderful you found love, just make sure to use protection, I'm far too young to be an aunt ok?" You say with a shit-eating grin.
The image cuts out for a moment, and suddenly Chrono is replaced with your mother. Did… he just redirect your call? How did he even do that?
"He-hey, mom." You stammer, still taken aback by what just happened.
"De-Destiny, how?" She begins.
"I think Chrono somehow redirected our call to you, though I don't know how he did that." You respond.
"Why would he do that?" She asks.
"I was teasing him about his crush on one of your crew." You answer.
"Ah yes, Amy. He has been making puppy eyes at her since he first saw her." She responds.
Amy. You'll have to remember that name.
"Anyway, how are you doing Destiny. I hope Esprit is treating you ok? I know she can be a bit rough around the edges." She asks.
"I've only really talked to her once so far, but I think we got along pretty well." You respond.
"That's great, what about the rest of the crew? She asked.
You dejectedly explain what happened in the training room.
"Well, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to get to know them better." She said.
"Yeah." You sigh.
"Well make sure to get a good night's sleep tonight, you want to prove to Esprit all that boasting you did wasn't just hot air." She said.
"Boa-boasting I didn't boast." You stammer.
"Really, that might be a first." She teases.
"Good luck." She says before disconnecting the call.
You feel drowsy taking over you and decide to go to bed, not because your mother told you to, but because you are a grown woman who makes good decisions.
XXXXXXXX
You run. You aren't sure why you. Running won't save you, and you know that. Perhaps it's just instinct, but whatever the reason, you are running, dragging your little sister through this hellscape.
"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\I'm scared." A voice calls from behind you.
"Don't worry Sarah, everything will be ok big sister is here for you." You lie.
How would anything be fine? The world around you is burning, everyone you know is dead. You watched your parents liquify in front of you, you can't even remember what they look like because every time you do that horrific scene is all you can see. No. There is no point in thinking like that. All you have to do is get your sister to the bunker. After you do that everything will work itself out. It has to because you don't know what you will do if it doesn't.
You continue to run. The bunker was only ten blocks away. You pass by 60th street, 59th, 58th, 57th, 56th. You are going to make it. Only five more blocks. After that, your sister would be safe.
You trip. No trip is the wrong word. To trip implies that you ran into something. You doubt there exists a word in any language for the situation you find yourself in. You suppose the closet thing would be saying that your legs gave out from under you, but to say that would imply you have legs, instead, a puddle of orange liquid lays where your legs had been.
"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\I'm scared"Sarah cries.
She should have landed on top of you, you had been holding her hand after all. Instead warm liquid sprays across your back burning through your skin. Tears well up in your eyes and you cry out to whatever god may answer for this nightmare to end. They respond with silence.
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As the warm water sprays across your back, you are reminded of your dream. Sarah. That was her name. The name of the girl who you failed to save that night, the name of your little sister. They say someone is only truly dead if no one remembers them, so what did that make her? You can't remember anything about her other than that night. Is it better to be dead, then to be a specter? An identity-less existence devoid of any meaning or substance, serving only to haunt the mind of the one you love. You just hope Chrono and mom never have to suffer like this.
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"Morning how's everyone doing?" You shout, barging into the bridge.
A large number of screens displaying various charts, plots, and other arrays of data you don't understand litter the area. Outside the large window is the large technicolored expanse of the dimensional sea. Admiral Esprit was the only one there. On most ships, there would be at least three or four other people helping out with the ship, but Esprit appeared to be doing all that by herself. You aren't sure if she's just that good, or the Timiat is just easier to pilot. Or maybe everyone else is one break.
"Moring," Esprit replies, not removing focusing from the overwhelming amount of data in front of her. "We will be at Nestea in about an hour, is there anything you needed?" She asks.
"Well, I was hoping to bend your ear for a bit until we got there, to be honest." You reply.
"Is that really necessary?" She asks.
"Well we are going to be working together and I know nothing about you." You respond.
She sighs. "Fine, what do you want to know?"
"I heard about your mother, how is she doing now?" You ask.
"She is no longer sick, but as she was bedridden for years she is currently undergoing physical therapy. How is Lindy doing?"
"She's doing great, currently patrolling unadministrated space with my little brother. How did you two meet anyway?"
"Classified. How is your little brother?" She asks shifting the topic further away from herself.
"He's doing well. You have any siblings?" You attempt to bring the focus back to her.
"None to speak of. My mother is my only family." She replies. "Must be tough having all your family working for the Bureau."
"It's not so bad, we keep in contact. Speaking of the Bureau how were your first few years working for it? I heard that you rose up the ranks fairly quickly so you must have some interesting stories to tell." You say trying to get any kind of information out of her.
"Classified." She responds.
"Really. You joined around 25 years ago right? I can't even imagine what kind of missions you must have been on for them to still be classified. I mean policy states that things can't stay classified for more than ten years and that rarely if ever gets violated." You respond with a knowing smile.
She flinches.
"I understand if you don't want to talk about something, everyone has things they don't want to talk about. But I need to be able to trust you for this mission to work, and I can't do that if you lie to me." You plead.
She sighs. "Alright. But I reserve the right to not say anything." She relents.
"Of course. Don't want to make you uncomfortable." You reply.
[]Write in a question
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As you approach Nestea you recall everything you can about the world. It's a mining planet owned by the Vespene corporation. All the mining is handled by remote drones, so there are very few actual people on the planet. Just about every structure on the planet is relegated to either mining materials or storing said materials. It's is the perfect place to hide something you don't want someone finding. Searching the entire planet blindly would get you nowhere, you needed a plan if you were going to find the fragment. It is probably in one of the warehouses, but you couldn't just waltz right in there and ask for it, or could you? No that is a stupid idea. You need some way to get into the mining facility without anyone knowing who you are. That meant either sneaking in with no one seeing you, or pretending to be someone who would have no problems getting in. The only question is what's better
[]Stealth your way in.
[]Write in how you do that.
[]Decide when you get there
[]Pretend to be someone else.
[]Who?
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Character sheets and Codex entries will go up later. Also feel free to ask any clarifying questions needed about Nestea or the Vespene Corporation.
So yeah. A week huh. This came out late do to a bunch of factors. I completely re-wrote some scenes multiple times. I changed some of the Dragon Slayers personalities a few times. And the scene between Destiny and Esprit went under like four different re-works. Also, I just got back to college after missing a semester last year due to being sick. I can't promise any form of normal schedule for the following updates but this quest isn't dead.
